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MAR

In May 2006, we followed up the Minera Silver Creek agreement by adding the acquisition of the MAR Project, consisting of a property concession amounting to approximately 10 square kilometers, and a surface ore dump that can serve as feedstock for an operating mill and recovery plant. The property has a history of small scale mining activity and is easy to access and develop. 

The Mar concessions has substantial merit as a potential setting for epithermal gold-silver deposits. Supporting evidence includes the following:

• The property is underlain by favourable Cretaceous-Tertiary andesite -rhyolite volcanic stratigraphy. These rocks are host to numerous small to large gold-silver deposits throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental physiographic province of Mexico.
  
• Major structural features (faults and lineaments) have been mapped in the region and in the vicinity of the Mar concession. Some of these features appear to be related to magnetic anomalies which may represent Tertiary age plutons intruded into the volcanic sequence. If so, then in addition to the mappable features, the intrusion of the pluton would have caused micro- fracturing of the volcanic rocks which would act as channel ways for mineralizing fluids. One such magnetic anomaly lies just to the east of the Mar concession.
  
• At least a portion of a past producing mine, Piedra Bola, lies within the concession boundaries. The style of the occurrence - veins and vein stockworks, the precious metals, base metals and trace metals present, and the associated silica, sericite, hematite and argillite alteration, all are consistent with the model for an epithermal precious metal deposit.
  
• There are several other known mineral silver - gold occurrences in the immediate area of the Mar concession, several of which were past producing mines. Silver appears to be equally important as gold. These mineral occurrences are hosted within the Cretaceous to Tertiary age andesite-rhyolite volcanic rock sequence.
  
• Work by Consejo suggests that other mineralized vein structures may exist within the vicinity of the main Piedra Bola vein. In addition, assays for 7 of the 8 samples collected by the Author from the dump were low grade (too low to be shipped to the Las Jimenez mill), but were nevertheless very significant (average 0.133 g/t Au and 26.5 g/t Ag).

The Mar concession is under explored. Except for some trenches immediately up hill from the adit mouth, no evidence, such as cut or flagged lines, drill hole pads, etc., was noted during the property visit to indicate that the property had ever been systematically explored. No records are known to exist that indicate that the concession was ever subjected to ground geophysical and or geochemical surveys, nor that any test holes (core, rotary, or any other type) had ever been drilled on the property. Although the concession and immediate area have undoubtedly been prospected at various times in the past, it is apparent that high grade veins had been the only targets of interest. Possible reasons, amongst others, for this lack of exploration are a) the extreme rugged nature of the terrain, and b) the prices for gold and silver - which were severely depressed from ~ 1998 to 2003.

1725 - 1903 Spanish or Local Interests
Mining at the forerunners of the Amparo and Piedra Bola mines began on a small scale in 1725 (Cardenas, 1992). By 1903, two mines - San Juan and Santo Domingo - were held and operated by a local company, Compania Minera La Armonia.

1903 - 1935 La Ampara Mining Company : (AMC)
AMC bought the San Juan and Santo Domingo mines in 1903, and over the years modernized the mining operations, and built a central mill at Las Jimenez ( Rene de Leon Meza). Ore from Piedra Bola was transported to the mill by overhead tramway from an adit that is now on the Mar concession (R. Ramiro, pers. comm.). The mine was closed by a strike in 1935.

1935 - ~1945 Miners Cooperative : (Coop)
The Coop took over production and operated on an intermittent basis (R. Ramiro, pers. comm.).